Alien Hotel.

Chapter 432 Dream
After Yu Sheng told the young woman in front of him the information he currently possessed, she remained silent for a long time.

“I know this is hard to accept, after all, it is indeed a bit too unbelievable,” Yu Sheng sighed, pointing helplessly to the surroundings, “but it is the truth. Look around you, this is the strange phenomenon that is ‘squeezed’ out of the collective unconscious boundary after the conflict between reality and illusion. Although I am not sure how you suddenly ‘woke up’, if you recall the past now, you should be able to perceive those inconsistencies that have always surrounded you but have never been clear.”

Mo Ran remained silent for a moment, and only after a long period of contemplation did she speak softly.

"Many years ago, there has been a strange disease on the planet Shuji. Few people suffer from it, but the symptoms are bizarre and inexplicable. Those who suffer from it will have their inner demons flare up for no reason, or suddenly fall into madness during the day, saying that they have seen strange and terrifying phenomena. But often, within a very short time, the person will suddenly return to normal, and may not even remember that they went mad. However, their vital energy will be greatly damaged, and their cultivation will be difficult to improve..."

"In addition, cultivators living in seclusion are more prone to qi deviation than other cultivators... The proportion is not high, only slightly higher, but no matter how much investigation or solution is sought, the proportion is still slightly higher."

"People have always believed that this is related to the ley lines of Shuji or the spiritual ore mining and refining facilities that are spread throughout the planet... As time went on, and no one could find out anything, it simply became a common understanding. People say, 'Shuji is a bit strange, the energy veins in remote areas are not good.'"

Mo Ran let out a soft breath, suppressing his emotions, and then his gaze fell on Yu Sheng.

“Since you gentlemen can move freely in this strange place and have taken the initiative to investigate this matter, you must have extraordinary abilities. Immortal Envoy Xuanche... must have been wary of me before, so you did not reveal many of the truths. Please tell me what to do next—I will definitely cooperate fully.”

“We don’t need you to do anything for now, but we’ll probably need you, the ‘city lord,’ to take charge later,” Yu Sheng said casually, clearly already having some ideas. “What we need to do now is find the ‘Star Derivative Body’ as soon as possible and find a way to expel it from this planet before it completely metamorphoses. To do this, we must enter the true Desolate Land… which requires us to find a way to break through this ‘Nightmare Border.’”

"Break through it?" Eileen subconsciously looked up at Yu Sheng upon hearing this. "How? Do you already have a plan?"

“The celestial body relies on the collective ‘cognitive barrier’ of everyone on the planet to hide the true solitude, so the key is how to drill a hole in this cognitive barrier. It has to be a big hole, big enough to tear reality apart over a considerable area,” Yu Sheng said, stroking his chin as he pondered. “Mo City is a large city, and its massive population is the best point of attack—if we can ‘awaken’ a large number of people in a short time, this ‘barrier’ that relies on the collective subconscious to be effective will surely have a loophole…”

Eileen blinked, exuding an aura of trying hard to think but not quite keeping up. After a long pause, she finally couldn't help but ask, "...Then what do we do?"

"You're asking me?" Yu Sheng stared wide-eyed. "You do it—aren't you the best at 'waking' people from their dreams?!"

The little doll was stunned for a moment before belatedly realizing what was happening, but after looking around, it shrank back and said, "Holy crap! You make it sound so easy! Do you know how many people are in this city? You want me to wake them all up? Even if you made 20,000 mass-produced machines for me right now, it might not be enough!"

Yu Sheng narrowed his eyes slightly: "There are indeed many people—but is there only one dream that requires your intervention?"

Eileen: "...Huh?"

“Have you forgotten what I just said? The ‘collective unconscious’—the cognitive barrier covering the Silence of the City—is interconnected at its core, at least in a large ‘gathering point’ like Mo City,” Yu Sheng said, recalling the scene where Eileen unconsciously released “threads” outwards. “If I’m not mistaken, you should have already noticed this when you entered this ‘nightmare border,’ but you instinctively ignored this ‘collective dream’ because it was hiding from you… To it, you are a threat.”

The little doll listened blankly, as if it were gradually recalling something, as if it were sensing something.

“Eileen, think back carefully to when we hadn’t left Huixianzhou—back then, we had just seen that warning on the glass window,” Yu Sheng said slowly, “remember if you sensed anything then, and then…”

He stopped.

Because he saw that thin black lines had begun to spread in the air.

Eileen disappeared.

Before disappearing, she first turned into an oil painting, but this process lasted only a moment, so brief that it could be ignored by a dream. Then the oil painting rose into the air and merged into the depths of the wind and rain in Yu Sheng's sight.

Black threads began to grow in the air, weaving at an astonishing speed, and a huge spider web instantly covered the sky. Then it slowly began to cover every inch of the land in Mo City. Endless spider silk hung down from the clouds, and within the "web" woven from black spider silk, the entire city began to tremble and shake.

Everyone stared in disbelief at the scene, even Yu Sheng was somewhat taken aback.

He hadn't expected that after receiving his "reminder," Eileen's power could spread so dramatically in this special "dream"—she hadn't realized the "essence" of this dream before, but once she did, everything changed.

For a doll capable of invading dreams, this place is practically a "hunting ground" set up just for her.

And this "mountain" located in the heart of the city is the perfect place for her to unleash her power. The mines have dried up, the city has declined, and its former glory is gradually being forgotten. The last remaining prosperous area has become a common pillar in everyone's hearts—in the dream, those buildings that symbolize the past prosperity pile up and grow like living things. A mountain covered with neon lights and welcoming speeches rises in the city center. Mental beings surround this mountain, subconsciously reminiscing about the good old days when the Refinement Tower could still roar to life... They gathered at just the right time.

A massive black spiderweb spread outwards from the "mountain" as its center. Wherever the spiderweb reached, countless mental entities turned into fragile bubbles. Twisted buildings collapsed and dissolved silently, and the chaotic city streets crumbled into endless darkness. A startling gap opened in the sky, through which wind and rain howled and the spiderweb crisscrossed. From that gap, a shadow, seemingly larger than the entire nightmare, revealed its presence.

That was the Weaver, crawling on the edge of the hunting ground, rapidly weaving its web. When the entire city was wrapped in endless black threads, when millions of minds in Mo City were simultaneously covered by the web and "stripped" from the overall cognitive barrier of Shuji, everyone saw... two crimson lights reflected in everyone's minds.

It was chilling, a chilling cold that seemed to pierce through the bones and into the soul.

At that moment, everyone in Mexico City had a dream.

Whether they were strolling through the city streets, resting at home, at school, in a factory, or in a shopping mall, chatting with friends or arguing with someone else—in what they considered to be "normal" life, a brief dream simultaneously intruded into the depths of everyone's consciousness.

Mo Ran looked up and saw that the entire city had turned into a tiny worm, with everyone clinging to it like dust.

She saw the small insect land in the center of the black spider web, and a weaver with scarlet eyes hidden in the vast shadows, slowly crawling along the web.

She saw the weaver's gaze fall upon her; each of his breaths seemed like the final warning before the end of the world.

Everyone heard the warning—

"Screw sleeping! Get up and party!"

The weaver's words were a bit rough.

But there was no malice involved.

And so, the city awoke.

Yu Sheng felt as if he heard a loud bang, but in reality there was no sound at all—what he felt was the collapse of his cognitive level, and after the collapse, he saw the entire city being quickly stripped of its disguise.

It was neither the "normal" city of Mexico, nor the bizarre dreamscape of twisted and stacked buildings—towering buildings stood in the wind and rain, old and ancient, with countless crystalline substances growing like mold along all the buildings in the city, layer upon layer, stretching as far as the eye could see.

Pale crystal clusters were everywhere, squeezing out cracks on the ground, piling up precariously on the surface of the air tracks, twining around distant refining towers like branches and vines, and even growing into crystalline jungles covering the wilderness outside the cities, spreading from one city to another.

The "mountain" beneath everyone's feet also returned to its original appearance.

This is the rooftop terrace of the city lord's mansion.

Those strange "pillars" that surround the mountaintop are actually models of the twelve Refinement Towers—symbols of the city, which have always stood at the highest point of the city lord's mansion.

But even the entire city lord's mansion has been covered by crystalline matter—it may have been covered for hundreds of years.

Mo Ran stared in astonishment at everything before her. Despite having prepared herself mentally as much as possible, she was still shaken to her core and almost lost her Dao heart.

But then she realized that she had to immediately start working to maintain order in the city!
“It’s up to you now,” Yu Sheng nodded to Mo Ran. “Stabilize the situation in the city, while we have to deal with bigger trouble.”

"it is good!"

(End of this chapter)